16 year old Thrishana Pothupitiya of Bishop's College Colombo writes
about the tsunami which devastated her island home.

I woke up on the day after Christmas, the 26th of December. I got out
of bed and having washed my face, I made my way down to have breakfast
with my family. The dogs were barking, children were playing outside our
gate, the birds were chirping, my mother was shouting at my brother to get
ready....it was just another ordinary day in Peliyagoda..... or so it
seemed.

A few hundred miles down the road an extraordinary event was unfolding,
there too families woke up and were having breakfast around the table,
there too mothers were asking their children to get ready, there too the
dogs were barking, the children were running onto the beach to play,
picking shells and even playing cricket. But a boom a thunderous boom
broke the peaceful morning....it came rushing, churning, swirling,
smashing, destroying, emptying, hurling everything in its path......in a
sweeping murderous instant a 20-foot tsunami had broken the heart of Sri
Lanka.

It was devastating, soul destroying bringing tears to a father who held
his dead son gently, his tears flowing down the child's body, a river of
grief....his wail echoed around the world in the homes of London, New
York, Tokyo, Melbourne, New Delhi, Moscow, Cape Town and Beijing.

Parts of the south and east coast were decimated, there was blood and
carnage everywhere, bodies were flung from trains, hotels and ordinary
homes. The wave swept over Sri Lanka and then receded with the dead and
the dying.

It was a catastrophe; the world's worst natural disaster had struck Sri
Lanka after a massive earthquake in the sea near Indonesia, registering 9
on the Richter scale. It registered an even greater depth of sadness and
heartbreak in Sri Lanka - whole communities were wiped out and it brought
death and destruction.

Sri Lanka dominated the world's headlines as people woke up on Boxing
Day to view the devastation on their television screens.

The image of a loving father grieving from the depths of his soul,
grieving for his son who appeared only to be asleep shook the world - it
broke the hearts of many from Stratford in East London to downtown Tokyo.

The scenes from our country galvanised people into action...bloggers
sent message screaming down the internet, an SOS was sent across the
globe.....the tears of Sri Lanka brought tears to humanity, it provoked
compassion as Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales said when he visited the
London Buddhist Vihara in Chiswick, Great Britain and met Mahanayake Ven
Vajiranana and the many volunteers from the Sri Lankan Community.

This spirit of compassion brought forth extraordinary tales - waiters
fully knowing their families had perished went out to save the lives of
tourists, a child who had learnt about the tsunami in her classroom fore
warned her family and took them to safety, a mother smashed the window of
the bathroom in her hotel and pushed her daughter out before the murderous
waters took her life, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka saving the life of
his political opponent and that of his family who were stranded on a
rooftop, churches giving shelter to Buddhist and Hindus, temples giving
shelter to Christians. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
appealed for humanitarian assistance.

The tidal wave shattered Sri Lanka but it could break the power of
humanity. It was human kindness and compassion that reached out to the
people of our land - and out pouring of love, of generosity that
overwhelmed our nation...... Children sold their Christmas in the UK to
raise funds for the tsunami victims in the Asia-Pacific, the dollars, the
yen, the pounds, the rupees flowed in of every currency from virtually
every land.

People are giving, without a thought for themselves as they see the
devastation day in day out on their television screens, reality television
at its worst and yet out of this disaster comes hope, hope in the form of
human compassion and kindness.

They come from all parts of the world to re-build our land. To re-build
schools and whole communities washed away by the giant wave.

It is the strength of humanity. Disasters bind us together with chords
that cannot be broken. Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Americans, Britons,
Swedes, Australians, Germans, French, Nigerians, Arabs, Singaporeans among
the multi-national, multi-coloured kaleidoscope of humanity all working
together to help Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is a cricket loving nation and what a wonderful sight it was
to see the world's cricketers spurred on by Shane Warne who stood side by
side with Muttiah Muralitharan to reach out to our country in a one day
match in Melbourne, Australia.

Our cricket team have also launched an appeal.

They say it will taken 10 years and billions of dollars. But more than
the colour of money it is the colour of humanity, the same blood that runs
through the veins of humanity has reached out to help the distressed and
the dying in Sri Lanka. It was an act of love. An act of compassion. An
act of humanity.

Albert Einstein said: 'A human being is a part of the whole called by
us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of
optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our
personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our
task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its
beauty.'

This tsunami has freed people from self and they have opened their
hearts, their minds and their wallets embracing the needy not only in Sri
Lanka but in Indonesia, in Thailand, in the Maldives, in South India.

The great Martin Luther King said:' An individual has not started
living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic
concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.'

This disaster has been a fine example of the people of the world going
beyond the narrow concerns of themselves and embracing humanity in South
East Asia.

We are surrounded by teams helping our fellowmen from all four corners
of the earth - this has never ever happened in Sri Lanka and we have never
ever had such a disaster such as a devastating tsunami. But we can drink
from the cup of human kindness, we can gain strength from that solidarity
and support, just as a child who has fallen raises her hands to seek help
to stand on her own two feet, the world has come to our aid and has
extended hands of friendship, love and support.

The ties of humanity will help us to get through this ordeal, we will
one day stand up on our own two feet again, and we will rise like the
proverbial phoenix. We will say thank you to human beings of all
nationalities, creed and colour who came to our aid who responded to the
call of Mother Lanka in her hour of need.

Ten years down the line there will be a new, vibrant, positive,
compassionate Sri Lanka - and we pray that it will be a vision of Sri
Lanka at peace with herself and her fellowmen.

We will draw strength from those simple acts of humanity that helped
us, extending hands of friendship and support when we fell as the water
rushed at us and threatened to flow over our souls. We will never forget.